GPS Team
Annette Cycon
Co-Founder and Co-President
Annette has been a social worker, group facilitator and trainer for over 30 years. As the Founder and former Director of Training of MotherWoman, over 17 years, she developed programs and is well known as an advocate for mothers and a trainer in Perinatal Mood Disorders, particularly regarding the impact of structural social justice issues such as poverty, race and culture on maternal mental health. Annette has spearheaded GPS’s international program bringing GPS’s maternal mental health to program to Guatemala and other Spanish speaking communities.
Black Leaders Support Group Facilitator
GPS Training Team
GPS Training Team
Kelle Kirk
Postpartum Moms Support Group
GPS Training Team
Donnajean (D.J.) Lopez
Recovery Support Group Facilitator
D.J. is a graduate of Harvard University’s National Whole Health Institute and Mind, Body Program. She is an active peer health and stress management specialist and passionately committed to the recovery group.
Recovery Support Group Facilitator
Khalil Saddiq
Black Leaders Support Group Facilitator
GPS Training Team
Khalil is a proud Marine Corps veteran and community volunteer, racial equity consultant and development specialist, and a community activist. He is the founder of 901 Consulting specializing in transforming organizational culture through a racial equity lens. Khalil is a co-facilitator for the GPS Black Leaders Group and part of the GPS Training Team.
Business Administrator
Kelle Kirk
Postpartum Moms Support Group
Kelle is a mama, partner, mental health therapist and lifelong learner. Being in a community and facilitating groups is a joie de vivre experience in her life. In her private practice and in GPS circles she hopes to support all of us to “Do Something Different.”
Postpartum Moms Support Group
GPS Training team
Postpartum Moms Support Group
GPS Training Team
GPS Training Team
Black Leaders Support Group Facilitator
Stella Zine
Recovery Support Group Facilitator
Stella is part of the ex-patient/survivor/consumer movement and was a certified peer specialist at Central State Hospital in Georgia. She was a support group facilitator for survivors of domestic violence, is a former board member for Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition, founding member of Solutions not Punishment Coalition and facilitates racial equity groups for activist and professor Loretta Ross.
GPS Postpartum Moms Support Group facilitator
GPS Training Team
Recovery Support Group Facilitator
GPS Training Team
Black Leaders Support Group Facilitator
Annette Cycon
Co-Founder and Co-President
Annette has been a social worker, group facilitator and trainer for over 30 years. As the Founder and former Director of Training of MotherWoman, over 17 years, she developed programs and is well known as an advocate for mothers and a trainer in Perinatal Mood Disorders, particularly regarding the impact of structural social justice issues such as poverty, race and culture on maternal mental health. Annette has spearheaded GPS’s international program bringing GPS’s maternal mental health to program to Guatemala and other Spanish speaking communities.
Betty Doherty
Betty is a woman in long-term recovery and has held many positions in the field of recovery in MA since 1998. Betty is currently a Family Recovery Support Specialist with the First Steps Together Program working with moms and dads who have substance dependency on their recovery and parenting journey. Betty enjoys leading GPS Recovery groups for both men and women. She also serves as Board Chair for Self Esteem Boston, a program that helps women feel better about themselves from the inside out.
Chris Leonard
Black Leaders Support Group Facilitator
Chris (she/her) is a skillful process facilitator who brings mindful awareness from her training as a Zen Shiatsu therapist into her work supporting workers and communities impacted by traumatic events and grief. She is based in Toronto, Ontario in Canada.
Crystal Gurney
GPS Training Team
Crystal took the GPS Training over 10 years ago, founded Kitsap HOPE Circle to serve perinatal parenting people in Washington state and has led over 700 groups. She is the GPS lead trainer in the ongoing GPS trainings offered by Perinatal Support Washington. She brings her compassion, humor and an innovative art-based approach to running groups to support people and communities in transition.
Crystal Gurney
GPS Training Team
Crystal took the GPS Training over 10 years ago, founded Kitsap HOPE Circle to serve perinatal parenting people in Washington state and has led over 700 groups. She is the GPS lead trainer in the ongoing GPS trainings offered by Perinatal Support Washington. She brings her compassion, humor and an innovative art-based approach to running groups to support people and communities in transition.
Julyvette Vazquez
Recovery Support Group Facilitator
Julyvette is a graduate student with an extensive background in group support and substance use recovery. She will graduate with a Masters in Social Work in 2022. She is passionately committed to creating safe spaces and helping folks navigate their hard emotions.
Linda Flewellen
Administrative Coordinator
Linda brings her passion, attention to detail and strong organizational skills to GPS along with her positive attitude that never stops. She is passionate about her creative, innovative, and organized approach.
Linda Flewellen
Administrative Coordinator
Linda brings her passion, attention to detail and strong organizational skills to GPS along with her positive attitude that never stops. She is passionate about her creative, innovative, and organized approach.
Liz Friedman
Co-Founder and Co-President
Liz sits on the MA Commission on the Status of Women, is on the Advisory Boards of MA PPD Fund and It Takes A Village, and has been involved in successful campaigns to pass Massachusetts’ legislation including PPD, Paid Sick Time, Paid Family Leave, Equitable Disability Insurance and Pregnant Workers Fairness Act which she led to passage. As the Founder and former Director of Programming of MotherWoman, she spearheaded the development of the evidence base for GPS Support Groups, developed a public health initiative to ensure that perinatal mothers receive the mental health care they deserve in MA, and in 2010, received the Ted Women’s Award for her outstanding work on behalf of mothers.
Mandy Breaux
Postpartum Moms Support Group
Mandy is a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner at South Cove Community Health Center providing perinatal care in Mandarin to Asian women.
Megan Roberts
Postpartum Moms Support Group
Megan is a maternal health advocate, peer support specialist, and writer who works with Postpartum Support International. She is passionately committed to her work with parenting families and her own personal growth.
Megan Roberts
Postpartum Moms Support Group
Megan is a maternal health advocate, peer support specialist, and writer who works with Postpartum Support International. She is passionately committed to her work with parenting families and her own personal growth.
Meyleen Valasquez
GPS Training Team
Meyleen Velasquez is an immigrant Latinx psychotherapist specializing in perinatal and infant mental health. She is a social work doctoral student researching anti-racist and anti-oppressive mental health services. Her practice supports women and clinicians working from an anti-oppressive framework. Meyleen identified as a Brown person for most of her life until several years ago when Vitiligo changed how she navigates the world.
Mia Edidin
Michelle Hagues-Fullwood
Black Leaders Support Group Facilitator
Nalley Willis
Program Administrator
GPS Training Team
GPS en Español Lead Trainer
Nallely is an educator and peer counselor who is passionate about Latina/x perinatal health. As the Program Director at Heartsounds, she works with low-income moms to provide doula, lactation, and prenatal support at no-cost. She has led GPS Postpartum Mothers groups in Spanish for many years, serving primarily immigrant, refugee and undocumented women living precariously on the border between AZ and Mexico. Nallely is a member of the GPS Training Team, as well as lead trainer of GPS en Espanol.
Sarah Garcia
GPS Training Team
Sarah works at a high school as a social worker and has brought GPS to her work with teen parents and is implementing a school-wide GPS program. Sarah’s areas of focus are homeless, foster, at-risk, youth of color and teen moms, as well as trauma-based yoga.
Sarah Garcia
GPS Training Team
Sarah works at a high school as a social worker and has brought GPS to her work with teen parents and is implementing a school-wide GPS program. Sarah’s areas of focus are homeless, foster, at-risk, youth of color and teen moms, as well as trauma-based yoga.
Stella Zine
Recovery Support Group Facilitator
Stella is part of the ex-patient/survivor/consumer movement and was a certified peer specialist at Central State Hospital in Georgia. She was a support group facilitator for survivors of domestic violence, is a former board member for Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition, founding member of Solutions not Punishment Coalition and facilitates racial equity groups for activist and professor Loretta Ross.
Tessa Smith
Black Leaders Support Group Facilitator
GPS Training Team
Tessa is a community partner committed to health and racial equity, who works for the Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency in Woodland, California. Tessa holds positions at the state, regional, and local levels and is passionately committed to advocating for the rights and safety of Black Men. Most recently, Tessa has partnered with Loretta Ross in ending White Supremacy and addressing the calling out culture.
Tyona Ezeilo
GPS Training Team
Tyona is a master’s level social worker who utilizes a compassionate, trauma informed, solutions focused, systems approach. She is a certified trainer for the Brazelton Institute. Tyona works with groups and parents to encourage healthy relationships, compassion, empathy, and self care.
Valeria Chambers
Black Leaders Support Group Facilitator
Using her lived experience as a Certified Peer Specialist in mental health recovery, Valeria works as a Peer Consultant at the Center of Excellence for Psychosocial and Systemic Research, Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Health Equity Research Lab, Cambridge Health Alliance. She is the founder and lead organizer of Blacks Voices: Pathways4Recovery, a state-wide advocacy and leadership support network for Blacks and African Americans.